Description:
In the classic tale, "A Journey to the Center of the Earth," Jules Verne imagined elaborate worlds in a hollow, miles beneath our feet. More modern science-fiction novelists have dreamed of spheres in outer space where earthling astronauts encounter alien life forms. Now these two ideas are being fused in a bubbling witches' cauldron: deep within the planet may be the best place to find new life forms on our planet--and glean clues to possible life on others. Vaporous hot pools far beneath Earth's surface support microbes conducting the business of life at extreme temperatures and pressures. The microbes, some of which are bacteria, are all called extremophiles, and their potentially far-reaching domain is called the subsurface biosphere.